top of page

   My Resume

 

   LAURA HANSON

COSTUME DESIGN

      (314) 962-6718     lahanso@siue.edu

 

EDUCATION

  •          Ph.D. in Educational Theatre, Department of Music and Performing Arts Professions, New York  

               University .  Dissertation: “Elements of Modernism in the Musicals of Stephen Sondheim.”

  •          M.A. in Theatre Arts (Theatre History and Theory/Directing emphasis), St. Louis University.

  •          B.A., Summa Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa in Theatre Arts, St. Louis University.

  •          Fashion Institute of Technology, NY: courses in pattern drafting and fashion illustration.

  •          Missouri Teaching Certification K-12

 

PROFESSIONAL COSTUME EXPERIENCE

 I. COSTUME DESIGN

Opera Theatre of St. Louis

  • Assistant Costume Designer to renowned designer, John Conklin, on The Turk in Italy and to Marie Anne Chiment on Black River, La Boheme, and Peter Grimes (directed by Colin Graham).  Duties included swatching, fabric purchasing, budgeting, attending fittings, acting as liaison with costume, crafts, wig and make-up shops, attending design meetings and presentations, rehearsals, production meetings.

 

Insight Theatre Company, St. Louis

  • Costume Design for Man of La Mancha, Proof, Shipwrecked, She Loves Me, Fox on the Fairway, 1776, Oliver, Over the River and Through the Woods, The Fantasticks, Company, Next to Normal, and The Importance of Being Earnest.

 

Upstream Theatre, St. Louis

  • Costume Design for The Glass Menagerie, The Year of the Bicycle, Sweet Revenge, A Tree Falling, Chef, and Wittenberg.

​

Hot City Theater, St. Louis                                                                               

  • Costume Design for Adult Entertainment (Post-Dispatch “Best Comedy” of 2005),

       Polish Joke and The Probe: An Inquiry into the Meteoric Rise and Spectacular Fall of

       Orson Welles in Hollywood.  This last production also appeared at the 2007 Prague

       International Theater Fringe Festival.   Costumes cited in a review as “SUPERB.”

​

Ballet Santiago de Cuba

  • Costume Design for Seasons of Versailles

​

Danza del Caribe, Santiago Cuba

  • Costume Design for T-Minus and Counting

​

Repertory Theatre of St. Louis

  • Costume Design for Still Life

​

Avalon Theater Company, St. Louis

  • Costume Design for The Subject Was Roses.

  

Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, Department of Theater and Dance; 2004-2019.

  • Faculty Costume Designer for Tartuffe, Gem of the Ocean, The Drowsy Chaperone, Blithe Spirit, The Trojan Women, The Miss Firecracker Contest, Into the Woods, A Servant of Two Masters, The 39 Steps, Carmina Burana, What the Butler Saw, Cinderella, The Importance of Being Earnest, Ubu Roi, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, As You Like It., Miss Julie, Dog Sees God, Whammy!, The Lower Depths, Antigone, A Lesson Before Dying, Twelfth Night, The Altruists, The Dispute, The Bald Soprano, North Shore Fish, and numerous pieces for Dance in Concert 2004-2014.

 

Saint Louis University, Department of Fine and Performing Arts, Theater Program

  • Faculty Costume Designer for Ain’t Misbehavin’ and Standing on my Knees.

 

The New Theatre, St. Louis

  • Resident Costume Designer for Rich and Famous, The Singular Life of Albert Nobbs,

       Icarus’ Mother, Red Cross, Marry Me a Little, Fool for Love, Speed-the-Plow.

 

Theatre Project Company & Muny/Student Theatre Project Co., St. Louis

  •  Costume Design for Extremities, Marco Polo, Indian Summer, and Give Me Liberty,

        which toured Missouri for six months.

 

Summer Theatre at Copper Mountain, Colorado

  • Costume Design for God’s Favorite, The Drunkard, Bus Stop.

 

Summer Show Biz at Southern Illinois University–Edwardsville

  • Costume Design for The Man Who Came to Dinner.         

 

Barn and Plantation Theatres, St. Louis

  • Costume Designer for Hotel Paradiso and Cat On a Hot Tin Roof.

 

St. Louis University Theatre

  • Resident Graduate Costume Designer for A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Arms and the Man, Twigs, I Never Sang for my Father, Boy Meets Girl, Stage Door, Mary, Mary.

 

II. COSTUME TECHNOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT

Barbara Matera, Ltd., New York

  • Costume construction on Broadway productions of Into the Woods, Me and My Girl, Teddy and Alice; national tours of Sweet Charity, La Cage Aux Folles; productions for The Acting Company, American Ballet Theatre, and New York City Ballet. Productions for designers such as Theoni Aldredge, Patricia Zipprodt, and Ann Hould Ward.           

 

Opera Theatre of St. Louis

  • Assistant Costume Shop Manager, 3 seasons.  Duties included setting up the shop, hiring labor, ordering and stocking supplies, meeting with designers, monitoring budgets, scheduling and attending fittings and dress rehearsals, keeping show bibles, acting as liaison between designers and draping teams.

  • Assistant Draper/ Assistant Tailor for 3 seasons.  Duties included attending and assisting at fittings, keeping fitting notes, cutting and construction, supervising and assigning work to stitchers                                       

 Repertory Theatre of St. Louis.

  • Costume staff for 5 seasons.  Duties included Draper on Julius Caesar; First Hand and  assistant to Head Draper and Tailor; fitting assistant, stitching, wardrobe supervision.                                                                                                       

 

Colbath, Ltd., New York

  • Costume construction for productions of Don Quixote, I Pagliacci, and Cavaleria

       Rusticana at New York City Opera.

 

Accu-Costume, New York

  • Costume construction for Les Fetes d’Hébé at New York Baroque Dance Company and “Little Miss Liberty” on Late Night with David Letterman.

 

Webster Dance Theatre, St. Louis

  • Draper and costume construction for classical ballet, jazz, and modern dance pieces.

 

COLLEGE TEACHING EXPERIENCE

 Courses in Costume Design, Costume Technology, Draping/ patterning, Stage Make-up, Musical Theatre History and Special Topics (Sondheim, Rodgers), Theatre History, Dramatic Theory and Literature, and Introduction to Theatre.

 

Southern Illinois University Edwardsville

  • Department of Theater and Dance, 2004-present.  Tenured Professor and

       Head of Design and Technical Theatre; Coordinator of Theater Education, 2015-2018.

 

Saint Louis University

  • Department of Fine and Performing Arts, Theater Program 2003-2004.  Visiting Artist; taught

       courses in costuming and theatre history, designed costumes, and managed costume shop.

 

 New York University Tisch School of the Arts 1989-2003

  • Graduate Department of Design for Stage and Screen.  Supervised costume shop              

        workroom and Costume Stagecraft class.  Worked in collaboration with Tisch’s

        Graduate Acting Program and Dance Department’s Second Avenue Dance Company.

  • Department of Drama, Undergraduate.  Taught courses in Musical Theatre topics and

       Auditioned applicants to the department.

 

New York University Steinhardt School of Education  2001-2003                  

  • Department of Music and Performing Arts Professions, Program in Educational Theatre.  Taught graduate courses in Theatre History and Development.                    

 

Marymount Manhattan College, New York  2002-2003.

  • Theatre Department. Created and taught courses in Special Topics in Musical Theatre: one on Stephen Sondheim and one on Richard Rodgers.

 

PUBLICATIONS/ PRESENTATIONS

  •  “Broadway Babies: Images of Women in the Musicals of Stephen Sondheim,” in Stephen Sondheim: a Casebook, a collection of critical essays, edited by Joanne Gordon.

  • “ Oliver Smith.”  Late & Great: American Designers 1960-2010, published by United States Institute for Theatre Technology, 2010.

  • “Oliver Smith’s Scenic Choreography for My Fair Lady.”  Theatre Design and Technology.  Winter 2009.  TD&T is the national publication of the U.S. Institute for Theatre Technology.

  • Theatre Journal, Spring 2003: review of Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy Center Sondheim Festival, including interview with festival director, Eric Schaeffer.

  • The Sondheim Review, Winter 2012: “A Rose by Any Other Name.”

  • The Sondheim Review, Fall 2004: “History, Politics, and Change.”

  • The Sondheim Review, Spring 2005: “John Weidman: One Thing Led to Another.”

  • The Sondheim Review, Spring 2002: separate articles on set and costume designs for the Broadway production of Into the Woods, including interviews with the designers.

  •  “A Little Night Music: The Third Time’s a Charm,” Program Notes, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, 1998.

  • Biographical entry on Stephen Sondheim for The Modern Age, 1914-2000, the eighth volume in the Greenwood Press reference series Interdisciplinary Biographical Dictionaries of the Western World’s Great Cultural Eras.

  • Biography of James Lapine for “American Playwrights” section of the Dictionary of Literary Biographies.

  • “Sondheim’s Company: the First Modernist Musical” presented at the Hawaii International Conference on Arts and Humanities, 2005.

  • “I Could Have Danced All Night:” the Choreographic Scenery of Oliver Smith,” selected for presentation at the Hawaii International Conference on Arts and Humanities, 2007.

  •  “Stephen Sondheim and the Modernist Musical” presented at the annual conference of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education, August 1997.

 

HONORS/ MEMBERSHIPS

  • Phi Beta Kappa (elected junior year)

  • Pi Lambda Theta, International Honor and Professional Association in Education

  • Association for Theatre in Higher Education

  • U.S. Institute for Theater Technology

  • National Merit Scholar

  • Alpha Sigma Nu, National Jesuit College Honor Society

  • Pi Delta Phi, National French Honor Society

  • Recipient of SIUE Summer Research Fellowships 2004 and 2005.

bottom of page